My Friday Five...

1.  Yoko Ogawa. I love her books. I love her writing. So, I was thrilled to find out that she has a new book coming out in August (13th) - hurrah! I was beyond excited when NetGalley provided me with an early copy thanks to Pantheon Books. So, I have been slowly reading it and enjoying every word. 

2. The 100 Day Project. I am still keeping up with it, which makes me so happy. I can't believe that I haven't given up already - I normally would have by now. I guess that I'm really digging writing blog posts again, which is helping me stay on track. Cool beans.

3. Bravo TV. I've been watching the Housewives reunions for Miami and Beverly Hills. And, I've been watching the new season of Summer House. I also just watched the trailer for the upcoming season of The Real Housewives of New Jersey. I'm enjoying the drama on all the shows, but I'm also not enjoying it. Does that make sense? It's just too much yelling at times, which can be a bit much. And, their 'drama' can be so superficial it's annoying to even watch. Yet, I watch. LOL!

4. More TV. I've also been rewatching Seinfeld - one of my favorites! And I started watching The Strain. It's an old show about vampires (or something like that). I remember watching some of the first season and then I stopped. So, we'll see if I finally finish the first season and then the rest of it. If not, I need to find something fun to watch. I was thinking of rewatching The West Wing - considering it's an election year, it might be a good idea. 

5. New Murakami. Woo hoo! Yep, his new book comes out later this year - November 26th. I will be pre-ordering this one and spending Thanksgiving weekend reading it. I can't wait!!

Hope you have a wonderful weekend! Happy reading!

The Tale of the House of Physics by Yoko Ogawa and translated by Ted Goossen

For my next JLC12 read, I went with my favorite - Yoko Ogawa. Her short story, The Tale of the House of Physics was selected for The Penguin Book of Japanese Short Stories edited by Jay Rubin. As soon as I saw her name included, I just knew that I was going to be in for a treat. I LOVE all of her work that I've read and am currently counting down the days until I can read her latest book, The Memory Police.  I was thrilled to get a taste of her writing with this short story - its only made me even more excited to read her new book.

The Tale of the House of Physics is a quiet story. Its slow-paced, aches with emotion, and leaves you wanting. Or at least that is how I felt. I couldn't help but get swept away into this tale of a retired book editor recalling the very first book he ever edited.  He's written down a list of the books he has edited throughout his career and thinks back to his first one.  He was a child.  Across the street lived a woman who no one liked.  She lived in an abandoned building that had once house a facility researching particle physics.  No one knew how she came to be there, she was just there.  She didn't talk to anyone and would walk on the edge of the sidewalk.  The children loved to play at the House of Physics.  They would play in the garden and sit out on the front porch.  They weren't afraid of the woman in the house.  In fact, they would listen to her speak about being a writer. You see, she would talk to them, but she would never look any of them in the eye. And she would tell them about being a novelist and how she had written many books. When the children asked for proof, she told them that her books had been burned in the war.  She had nothing left to show them.  The children laughed and didn't believe a word she said.  They continued to play in the garden and even buried a dead weasel they found one time. One day our narrator notices something slightly off about the House of Physics.  He walks over and looks around. He enters the house and finds the woman covered up in a bed in the middle of the front room. She is sick. He runs to get help.  She slowly gets better and he winds up spending time with her.  As he sits next to her, he hears her mumbling.  It finally hits him that she is mumbling a story.  So he writes it all down. He binds the copy he writes and leaves it for her.  And then one day, she is gone. The house is empty and no one knows what happened to her.  Our narrator is left with his memory of the woman, her story, and the House of Physics.

That's the story in a nutshell. There are details I left out, so you can definitely experience it all for yourself when you get the chance to read it. And let me say, you should most definitely read it. I absolutely LOVED it. I loved getting to know this character as he reflected on his career and the House of Physics.  Ogawa captured a feeling of nostalgia, authenticity, and innocence.  She wrote about him with such clarity and emotion - it was superb. I loved reading about his perspective of the woman in the House of Physics.  It made me think about so many things: how strangers can have an impact on your life sometimes; how relationships can develop out of nowhere; how people have histories we are not aware of; and how stories truly are magical. Plus, the simple and elegant style of the story provides such a rich depth to it. Its truly a treat to read.

I would definitely recommend The Tale of the House of Physics to fans of Ogawa and anyone looking for their next great read - especially, if you love short stories.

And now, I'm off to figure out which book to read next. Yoshimoto or Murakami? Perhaps, I should read something by a new-to-me author. Hmm...what do you recommend?

Happy reading!!

The Diving Pool: Three Novellas by Yoko Ogawa

about book:

From Akutagawa Award-Winning author Yoko Ogawa comes a haunting trio of novellas about love, fertility, obsession, and how even the most innocent gestures may contain a hairline crack of cruel intent.

A lonely teenage girl falls in love with her foster brother as she watches him leap from a high diving board into a pool - a peculiar infatuation that sends unexpected ripples through her life.

A young woman records the daily moods of her pregnant sister in a diary, taking meticulous note of a pregnancy that may or may not be a hallucination - but whose hallucination is it, hers or her sister's?

A woman nostalgically visits her old college dormitory on the outskirts of Tokyo, a boarding house run by a mysterious triple amputee with one leg.

Hauntingly spare, beautiful, and twisted, The Diving Pool is a disquieting and at times darkly humorous collection of novellas about normal people who suddenly discover their own dark possibilities.

my thoughts:

OMFG! Once again, Yoko Ogawa has made me fall in love with her writing.  I'm serious, its true.  I heart Ogawa's writing.  It is just so fracking fantastic that I can't help but find myself completely spellbound by her beautifully elegant words.  She just knows how to write in such a delicate way about the most creepy, ugly, and disturbing things - it just blows my mind.  I swear, her writing always leaves me in awe - and The Diving Pool was no exception.

Ogawa has written three novellas that are intriguing, unsettling, and incredibly haunting. I found myself obsessed with the first story titled, The Diving Pool.  Its about a teenaged girl named Aya who is is love with her pseudo-brother Jun.  They live in an orphanage that is run by Aya's parents.  As we learn more about Aya and her infatuation with Jun, we also begin to see a different side to Aya.  She has a cruel streak that is fierce and her victim is a toddler named Rie.  Aya places Rie in an urn and listens to her cry; she feeds her a rotting pastry; and she sends Rie to hospital - its unsettling to read about, but you can't help but keep turning pages.  I found it to be a truly fascinating read about the battle within Aya as she struggles to get a handle on these malevolent feelings that somehow seem to be a reaction of sorts to her romantic feelings for Jun.  Its just an amazing story.  As for the other two novellas - Wow!  In the Pregnancy Diary, we have two sisters, one is pregnant and the other is fanatical about recording a diary of her sister's pregnancy.  At first we just read about how any smell of food makes the sister sick and so she isn't eating.  But then grapefruit jam makes an entrance and the next thing you know she can't stop eating grapefruit jam.  She is eating it by the ton it seems.  The thing is that grapefruit jam is possibly toxic...hmmm...and yet, more and more of it get made.  I'll just leave it at that.  In the final novella, Dormitory, we have a woman who is getting ready to move to Sweden with her husband - she's just waiting for him to tell her its time.  Her days are spent ignoring his email lists and sewing patchwork for a quilt.  One day she gets a call from a cousin she hasn't seen in ages and the next thing you know, she is helping him move into the old boardinghouse she lived in during college.  She begins to visit her cousin at his new place, but he's never home and so she winds up hanging out with the landlord.  However, it starts to get a bit scary when her cousin NEVER seems to be home and then the landlord is confiding about the real reason his boardinghouse is empty.  This story makes you jump to extremes rather quickly and I loved it.

I know I didn't give a lot away for each story, but how could I - they were short!  Plus, these are the types of stories you need to read for yourself in order to appreciate.  They are eye-opening, thought-provoking, eerie, brilliant, and the epitome of a what a short story should be.  You will love them!!

Hurrah! I finally read something for JLC7!!  This month was short story month and Ogawa's book The Diving Pool was the perfect choice for the challenge.  And now, I'm off to finish reading Jeannette Walls' The Silver Star - it is AMAZING!!!

Revenge: Elven Dark Tales by Yoko Ogawa

about book:

SINISTER FORCES COLLIDE - AND UNITE A HOST OF DESPERATE CHARACTERS - IN THIS EERIE CYCLE OF INTERWOVEN TALES FROM YOKO OGAWA, THE CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED AUTHOR OF THE HOUSEKEEPER AND THE PROFESSOR.

An aspiring writer moves into a new apartment and discovers that her landlady has murdered her husband.  Elsewhere, an accomplished surgeon is approached by a cabaret singer, whose beautiful appearance belies the grotesque condition of her heart.  And while the surgeon's jealous lover vows to kill him, a violent envy also stirs in the sole of a lonely craftsman.  Desire meets with impulse and erupts, attracting the attention of the surgeon's neighbor - who is drawn to a decaying residence that is now home to instruments of human torture.  Murderers and mourners, mothers and children, lovers and innocent bystanders - their fates converge in an ominous and darkly beautiful web.

Yoko Ogawa's Revenge is a master class in the macabre that will haunt you to the last page.

my thoughts:

READ THIS BOOK, ASAP!!  Seriously, you must - it is just so damn good.  The writing is excellent and the stories are unputdownable.  I actually made myself read one story at a time, because I did not want the book to finish - so, yeah, it took me eleven days to read this book (and I loved every day of it.)

In my opinion, Revenge is one of the BEST short story books ever written.  Eleven dark tales filled with ordinary people experiencing sad, fascinating, shocking, and rather odd experiences definitely makes for quite an amazing read.  There are five-fingered carrots, strawberry cakes, tigers, kiwis, a tongue, a handbag for your heart, and so much more.  With Ogawa, you never know what you are going to get and that is precisely what I love about her works.  They always leave me feeling shocked, curious, awed, and, even speechless at times.  She is just so talented at exploring the dark and twisty aspects of life and writing about them in such a matter of fact manner, that you almost accept these events as part of the daily norm.  And its crazy, because dead husbands buried in the garden, and tongues popping out of coat pockets are not part of the daily norm; but they are in Ogawa's world.  What makes these stories even more interesting is that all they connect to one another in the most unexpected ways.  I loved figuring out how each story related to the next one - it made reading the book even more fun. 
  
So, do yourself a favor and get your hands on a copy of  Revenge - you will love it!! 

Hotel Iris by Yoko Ogawa

Description from book flap:

In a crumbling seaside hotel on the coast of Japan, quiet seventeen-year-old Mari works the front desk as her mother tends to the off-season customers.  When one night they are forced to expel a middle-aged man and a prostitute from their room, Mari finds herself drawn to the man's voice, in what will become the first gesture of a single long seduction.  In spite of her provincial surroundings, and her cool but controlling mother, Mari is a sophisticated observer of human desire, and she sees in this man something she has long been looking for.

The man is a proud if threadbare translator living on an island off the coast.  A widower, there are whispers around town that he may have murdered his wife.  Mari begins to visit him on his island, and he soon initiates her into a dark realm of both pain and pleasure, a place in which she finds herself more at ease even than the translator.  As Mari's mother begins to close in on the affair, Mari's sense of what is suitable and what is desirable are recklessly engaged.

My thoughts:

Wow. Ogawa has written another haunting novel.  I'm not sure what to write about this book, because truthfully there were times that I was rather shocked at the deplorable and violent manner in which Mari was treated by her companion, the translator.  Her first foray into an intimate relationship consisted of being tied up, hung by the ceiling, photographed, physically and verbally abused - all of which Mari craved and enjoyed.  So, why did I cringe whilst reading about this S&M relationship? Because Mari is seventeen and has never experienced unconditional love from anyone (except her father, who was an alcoholic that died rather suddenly in Mari's young life).  She believes she is ugly and undeserving of happiness and views her relationship with the translator as a means of escape from her stagnant life at the hotel; where her mother roughly brushes her hair every morning and constantly berates her for merely existing.  With no friends to talk with or hang out, Mari relishes the freedom she feels when she is with the translator.   And this translator takes advantage of Mari's naivete.  He engages this young lady by playing on her loneliness and desperation.  At first, he seems rather odd, but quiet and soft spoken.  There is a walk around town and a wave goodbye, which leads to a letter that implores Mari to please meet him again.  Once they are on his island and in his house, the atmosphere shifts and the translator is no longer kind - instead he becomes forceful and authoritative with regards to what he expects from Mari.  Its interesting to watch this relationship progress throughout the book and the ways in which Mari's demeanor changes, along with her feelings about her body and self.  I think that the introduction of the translator's nephew was an easy way to begin the ending of Mari's relationship with the translator. Of course, the ending is not what I expected.  I won't spoil the ending for you, but suffice it to say that the translator turns out to be just as ugly a person as I had figured out earlier.  As for Mari, I'm not sure what I feel towards her, except disappointment and pity.  In the end, these characters definitely captured my attention as did their story.  Ogawa is able to describe a scene so vividly that you can clearly picture Mari's thrill at deceiving her mother or the excitement she felt while reading the translator's letters tucked away behind the front desk when no one was looking.  The writing is solid and the tone is perfect at capturing the unpredictable shift of events throughout the novel.  I would definitely recommend this book to Ogawa fans.

Happy reading to all! I'm off to finish reading Jean Rhys', Let Them Call It Jazz.

By the by, this read counts towards two of my reading challenges: Bellezza's Japanese Literature Challenge 4 and CL's The Summer Reading Challenge 2010 - (Click on the links to find out more about each challenge, if you are interested in joining in on the reading fun).  Bazinga for me!

The Housekeeper and the Professor

I have literally just finished reading Yoko Ogawa's brilliant book, The Housekeeper and the Professor. And right now I am in awe. I can't believe that this novel evoked such strong emotions from me, but it did. The writing was wonderful because it centered on the strange and beautiful relationship between a brilliant mathematician, his astute housekeeper, and her 10 year old son, Root. To begin, we meet The Housekeeper who has taken on a new job working for a mathematician whose mind only retains 80 minutes worth of information at a time. To keep things in order, he has taken to pinning notes onto his suit: a reminder that his mind has a short-term memory of 80 minutes, a reminder of his new housekeeper and her son, a reminder of where he can find his pills, etc. All day long the Professor spends his time working on mathematical problems, while the Housekeeper tends to the house. At night she returns home to her son. However, upon learning that she has a son, the Professor tells the Housekeeper that she must bring her son to work in order to ensure his safety (he would go to the park after school and then home). Her son and the Professor become fast friends and begin to look forward to spending time with each other. Because of his flat head, the Professor nicknames the boy, Root (square root). Soon the Housekeeper, Professor and the Root fall into a familiar routine of working all day, listening to the radio at night and enjoying each other's company over dinner. However, the Professor's sister-in-law (she hired the Housekeeper to tend her brother-in-law's house because of his mind glitch) catches wind of an overnight stay (the Professor was sick and so the Housekeeper and her son both stayed to care for him) and has the Housekeeper promptly fired. We soon find the Housekeeper employed by a rude company and having to leave her son home alone again. Missing the Professor and his love of numbers, both the Housekeeper and Root make do with their memories of the Professor. However, things change when the Housekeeper receives a call that the Professor's sister-in-law has requested her services once again. Soon enough, The Professor, Housekeeper and Root are reunited. The story goes on to reveal truths from the past and future and shows us ways in which the Professor's love of math forged such lifelong connections. We learn so much through the astute observations the Housekeeper makes with regards to the Professor's work habits, his gestures, his moods, etc and we learn about her connection to this man and the ways in which he has impacted her life and Root's. This book is written in such an elegant manner with such simple words that the reader cannot help but become immersed in it. The use of numbers as a means of communication for the Professor is amazing because it shows how much he regales these symbols that have afforded him prizes and distinction during his career and have continued to provide him with a familiarity that calms him and brings him peace. There is just so much to write about this wonderful story that I could go on and on and on, but I won't because I do not want to give away too much. The Housekeeper and the Professor is by far one of the best books that I have read this year and I highly recommend it to everyone! I originally read this book in order to complete the Japanese Literature Challenge 3 (which actually does complete the challenge for me), but am happy to say that this book is one that I will revisit from time to time for the pure pleasure of reading it. Happy reading to all!!